I recently came upon my old prospect guides and I thought it might be interesting to look back six years to see where  the Blue Jay prospects were rated.  Given the current uninspiring reviews of our farm system it might give us some hope that a lower rated prospect can make the jump to become a major league regular.

Here is the Baseball America top ten and notables from the 2004 handbook which was based on performances in the 2003 season.

1. Alex Rios
2. Dustin McGowan
3. Guillermo Quiroz
4. Gabe Gross
5. Francisco Rosario
6. Aaron Hill
7. David Bush
8. Vince Perkins
9. Russ Adams
10. Brandon League

11. Josh Banks
13. Kevin Cash
17. Jason Werth
21. Shaun Marcum
23. Vinnie Chulk
29. Simon Pond

Fifteen of those sixteen guys appeared in the major leagues, Vince Perkins is the only one not to get the proverbial "cup of coffee".

There are eight players here that I consider to have established themselves as major leaguers.  They are Rios, McGowan, Gross, Hill, Bush, League, Werth and Marcum.  Four pitchers and four hitters comprise the eight.  Eight major leaguers is a very good haul from a top 30 list.

Half the pitchers (two) have lost significant time to injury, namely McGowan and Marcum.  Rios, Hill and Werth are everyday players, Gross generally plays in a platoon.

Six of the top ten have succeeded, there were four players who did not live up to expectations.  Again six successes out of your top ten is a good result.  The four who disappointed are Quiroz, Rosario, Perkins and Adams.  Perkins and Rosario could be grouped together as guys who threw hard but never really developed into pitchers. In addition they were hit by injuries.  Both of them had good fastballs and not a lot else and without the else were exposed at AAA.  Quiroz and Adams never hit enough to hold down a major league job.

Quiroz was 22 at the time of this list and made it to #4 on the back of hitting 20 home runs in AA as a 22 year old.  Quiroz hit .282 in that season, his highest batting average as a minor leaguer to that point.  The previous season Quiroz hit .260 in Dunedin with 12 home runs and was the Jays #12 prospect.  BA did point out that Quiroz's swing could be considered long and mechanical and they said he would never hit above .270 in the major leagues.  I think that prediction came true.

Adams was rated at #9 based on two minor league seasons.  In his second professional season, in 2004, Adams hit .279 in Dunedin and .277 at New Haven.  BA noted that his arm was below average and suggests a future move to second base but there was no criticism of his hitting.

Rosario had TJ surgery in 2003 and did not play but BA liked him enough to leave him at #5 in this list.  Perkins control issues are noted by BA but his ranking was supported by a plus fastball.

The two major "misses" by BA were Werth and Marcum.  In BA's defense Werth was demoted from being ranked #2 the previous season due to injuries and a position change.  Werth injured his wrist in the spring and missed time.  He also made the switch from catcher to the outfield which also reduced his positional value per BA.  Werth had 236 AB's at Syracuse and hit just .237.  BA noted that Werth swung and missed too much to be an everyday major league hitter at this point.  In 2003 at AAA, Werth had 68 K's in 236 AB's which is high but not necessarily fatal to his chances.  Howver he did strikeout 22 times in 48 big league AB's.

Marcum had 34 professional innings under his belt when he was rated at #21.  Marcum was never highly rated on his way through the system.

Given the uncertain nature of prospect performance BA did a decent job of ranking the prospects and again we should remember that BA favours the high potential players.  Five tool players like Rios and hard throwers like McGowan and Rosario always rate better in the BA system.

I also have John Sickels prospect book from 2004 and here are his rankings of these players.

Alex Rios  B+
Dustin McGowan  A-
Guillermo Quiroz  B+
Gabe Gross  B+
Francisco Rosario  not rated
Aaron Hill  B+
David Bush  B+
Vince Perkins  C+
Russ Adams  B
Brandon League  B

Josh Banks  B+
Kevin Cash  B-
Jason Werth  not rated
Shaun Marcum  C+
Vinnie Chulk  C+
Simon Pond  C-

Sickels was less enthusiastic than BA about Vince Perkins, correctly, but he had higher hopes for Josh Banks.

I am sure the Jays would love to have two players rated outside the top ten this year develop into copies of Jason Werth and Shaun Marcum.  It could happen.  However the bottom line is that in general BA and Sickels did a good job in identifying who the top prospects were.  Werth had been in the top ten the previous year and dropped due to injury.  Marcum had not pitched much in college and as a result there was a limited track record on which to evaluate him.  This doesn't give us a lot of hope that there are stars in the lower levels of the Jays top 30 prospects.  In a few days we will cast a wider net to all the major league prospects from 2004 to see where we find some lower rated future stars.